The End of Settlement: why the 2023 referendum failed

Has Australia reached the end of settlement? Reflecting on his pivotal role in the development of a proposal to recognise Australia's Indigenous peoples in the Constitution, Damien Freeman explains how something that started off as an exercise in settlement politics ended in a failed referendum. From Alfred Deakin's development of the Australian Settlement to Bob Hawke and Paul Keating's dismantling of it with John Howard's support, the capacity to reach consensus despite enduring disagreements has been an important feature of Australian politics. Freeman draws on Paul Kelly's The End of Certainty, Roger Scruton's Our Church, and John Howard's A Sense of Balance to develop an account of the settlement politics that has been such a fundamental feature of Australian political history. In an era of diminishing trust and increasing polarisation, it seems that settlement politics may no longer be possible, instead giving way to populism and identity politics. The End of Settlement poses some challenging yet vital questions about the direction in which we want Australian politics to travel in the aftermath of the 2023 referendum. Damien Freeman is a writer, lawyer, and philosopher who was appointed a member of the University of NSW's John Howard Prime Ministerial Library advisory board in 2022, an honorary fellow of Australian Catholic University in 2023, and a research fellow of Catholic Schools NSW's Kathleen Burrow Research Institute and a fellow of the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne in 2024.